Ross Pearson Seeks Justice After Worst Call of All Time, Officially Appeals Decision

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Ross Pearson Seeks Justice After Worst Call of All Time, Officially Appeals Decision

If you didn’t see Diego Sanchez vs. Ross Pearson at UFC Fight Night 42 last night, let us break it down for you: Ross Pearson hit Diego Sanchez in the face repeatedly far more than Diego Sanchez hit him. But when the decision was announced, it was Sanchez’s hand that was raised. Worst decision in MMA? Yeah probably. And we’re not alone in thinking that.

The Telegraph reports that Pearson and his head coach Eric Del Fierro officially filed a complaint with the New Mexico Athletic Commission after the fight. It almost definitely won’t be overturned, however. Once home cooking has been scarfed down, it’s not likely to be thrown back up (unless it’s a quail egg). Dana White hasn’t issued any kind of rant (or incredulous defense of) the decision. He’ll probably just ignore it.

Pearson was coming off a no contest via illegal knee against Melvin Guillard back in late October. Prior to that he had beaten Ryan Couture and George Sotiropoulos. With the questionable bullshit split decision win, Sanchez snaps a two-fight losing streak.

If one million people watched all 15 minutes of the Diego Sanchez vs. Ross Pearson fight (check out the highlights here) from last night's (Sat., June 7, 2014) UFC Fight Night 42: "Henderson vs. Khabilov" event in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it's safe to assume only one of them thought Sanchez won all three rounds.

That one just so happened to be one of the judges presiding over the bout.

Another judge scored it for Sanchez two rounds to one, giving him the split decision victory. The other judge, whom the majority of fans and pundits agreed with, scored it 30-27 for Pearson.

That's one hell of a disparity among judges, no?

Naturally, it's worth looking at the statistics (via the fine folks at Fight Metric) to see how they align with popular opinion and to that end, this probably won't surprise you.

That's almost embarrassing. The only measure you could argue Pearson lost was aggression and Octagon control but does that override every other metric?

It shouldn't. As Color Commentator Kenny Florian said immediately after the bout at his first opportunity, "with all due respect to Diego Sanchez, he did not win that fight".

There is no way in hell it is going to get overturned, unless it comes out that a judge mixed up the scorecards, but the more press this gets the better. I didn't mind Diego before, but these stupid decisions are making me hate him. I know it is not his doing, but god damn it, I am starting to hate him. All that said, I have a lot of respect for Kenny for actually calling out the bs decision on broadcast.

There is no way in hell it is going to get overturned, unless it comes out that a judge mixed up the scorecards, but the more press this gets the better. I didn't mind Diego before, but these stupid decisions are making me hate him. I know it is not his doing, but god damn it, I am starting to hate him. All that said, I have a lot of respect for Kenny for actually calling out the bs decision on broadcast.

I said before and might get shit on but I wouldn't be surprised to find out there was illegal activity going on or at least one judge had an extreme bias towards Sanchez.

I said before and might get shit on but I wouldn't be surprised to find out there was illegal activity going on or at least one judge had an extreme bias towards Sanchez.

The biggest motivation for a farce like this is money. It happened in the NBA on the biggest of stages, would not surprise me at all to find corruption in the judging ranks. Im sure diego was hefty underdog in the odds. A judges buddy could make a nice 300-400% turn around on a fight like this. Perfect fight to fix too. A guy you KNOW is going to fight hard, push the pace, and takes a gun shot wound to actually finish. Diego was going to fight hard and would not get finished. Not saying this is the case here, but this would be the type of fight i would risk a ton of money on if i was a judge looking for fight with good odds that i thought would go the distance where i could take over.

For it to be overturned, the AC would have to admit that their judges are wrong. And since I've never heard of an athletic commision referring to their judges as anything but infallible, I don't see it happening.

If you take away the Gomi, Kampmann, and Pearson BS decisions Sanchez would be on a 6 fight losing streak and would have lost 8 of his last 9. And as a bonus, he missed weight by 8 pounds against Gomi.

For it to be overturned, the AC would have to admit that their judges are wrong. And since I've never heard of an athletic commision referring to their judges as anything but infallible, I don't see it happening.

If you take away the Gomi, Kampmann, and Pearson BS decisions Sanchez would be on a 6 fight losing streak and would have lost 8 of his last 9. And as a bonus, he missed weight by 8 pounds against Gomi.

I'll say it: Diego Sanchez is not a UFC caliber fighter anymore.

Don't really see how anyone could disagree with you there. I feel like Diego is losing fans as a result of these horrid decisions.

Originally Posted by Supe

The biggest motivation for a farce like this is money. It happened in the NBA on the biggest of stages, would not surprise me at all to find corruption in the judging ranks. Im sure diego was hefty underdog in the odds. A judges buddy could make a nice 300-400% turn around on a fight like this. Perfect fight to fix too. A guy you KNOW is going to fight hard, push the pace, and takes a gun shot wound to actually finish. Diego was going to fight hard and would not get finished. Not saying this is the case here, but this would be the type of fight i would risk a ton of money on if i was a judge looking for fight with good odds that i thought would go the distance where i could take over.

Also, since Diego has won multiple bullshit decisions in the past, he would be the perfect person to fix a fight for. I don't think the other fights were rigged just bad judging. This one however, I do think was rigged.

For it to be overturned, the AC would have to admit that their judges are wrong. And since I've never heard of an athletic commision referring to their judges as anything but infallible, I don't see it happening.

If you take away the Gomi, Kampmann, and Pearson BS decisions Sanchez would be on a 6 fight losing streak and would have lost 8 of his last 9. And as a bonus, he missed weight by 8 pounds against Gomi.

I'll say it: Diego Sanchez is not a UFC caliber fighter anymore.

100%.

The AC isn't EVER going to take any level of responsibility for the actions of those they've placed into their employ.